Director of new Cardiff University research centre appointed

A director has been appointed at a new research centre based at Cardiff University.

Dr Paul Willis will join the brand-new Centre for Adult Social Care Research (CARE) as its first director later this year.

He will lead our new research centre CARE, set up with £3m of Health and Care Research Wales funding, over the next five years.

Jonathan Scourfield, Professor of Social Work, said:

We are pleased to announce that Dr Paul Willis from the University of Bristol has been appointed as the founding director of the new Centre and Professor of Adult Social Care. He will be taking up his post in mid-November.”

Dr Willis is an expert in older people’s social care and a Senior Fellow of the NIHR School for Social Care Research. His research areas are in gender, sexuality and care provision, and is a qualified social worker. Dr Willis added:

I’m delighted to be appointed director of this new research centre and I look forward to working with the team and collaborators in building a new research programme to help inform and improve the delivery of high-quality social care to people with care and support needs in Wales.”

CARE will bring together multi-disciplinary expertise from across the university, fostering collaboration with experts elsewhere in the UK, developing cutting-edge research on adult social care, underpinned by UK-level research funding.

Professor Kieran Walshe, Director of Health and Care Research Wales, said:

The brand new £3m research centre for adult social care will bring together expertise from across the sector and deliver on a key commitment to increase capacity and capability of social care research across Wales.

“Dr Paul Willis will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to this role and we look forward to working together and seeing the vision of a vibrant social care research community come to life.”

The centre is currently recruiting six posts:

• a Reader
• four researcher positions
• a Centre Manager.

The Reader position and two of the research posts are open-ended contracts, with the others being fixed-term for at least three and a half years.

Subject to the internal redeployment process, full information about these posts and how to apply can be found here on the Cardiff University jobs page.